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Specifically, if you pick the wrong climate once, you should change your mindset.

The parties' obsessions with putting their conventions in swing states came back to bite them. The Republicans lost a day of the convention, and quite a bit of media attention, to a hurricane -- an utterly predictable occurrence when you choose to put a convention in Tampa in late August.

And Democrats had to abandon plans to have President Obama accept his nomination outdoors in a football stadium -- because of the threat of thunderstorms, also a totally predictable outcome when you put an early September convention in Charlotte.

It's amazing, given the obsession with control that is a hallmark of 21st century convention planners, that these events were ever scheduled in these two places. Just purely on weather terms.

The good news for these parties is that there's a solution for their convention weather problems.

That solution is Southern California.

Yes, we're not a swing state. But so what? There's no real data to suggest that the parties gain from being in those swing states. And Southern California offers the benefits of good, predictable weather.

So if the Republicans and Democrats are wise, they'll come to LA or San Diego next time. The 2016 Democratic nominee could accept her nomination in the Coliseum, or the Rose Bowl, or Dodger Stadium, or the new Farmers Field if they ever built it.

The Republicans could pick San Diego and do the convention at Petco Park or the sports arena, just a short drive from Mitt Romney's beach house.

They could put their conventions here with complete confidence that nothing could go wrong.

Except earthquakes.

Lead Prop Zero blogger Joe Mathews is California editor at Zocalo Public Square, a fellow at Arizona State University’s Center for Social Cohesion, and co-author of California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It (University of California, 2010).